Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Maybe the Times-Leader is not lost

How many towns in the US have competing newspapers? The last time I checked it was about 10. Most of them are in big cities. I never thought I would be defending the Times-Leader especially after the strike that broke the union and spurred a new publication-The Citizens Voice. For those of you old enough to remember it was one of the most vicious responses to a strike I have ever seen. Since then the TL has passed through a few different owners and now they want to sell. The rumor is that Times-Shamrock will buy the paper and shut it down. Hopefully this will not happen:

A group of investors assembled by Publisher Pat McHugh has submitted a surprise bid for the purchase of the Times Leader, a source familiar with the effort said Friday.The offer was made to keep the paper operating and to retain the work force, according to the source, who is close to a Philadelphia-area consulting firm that brokered the arrangement.

4 comments:

I like having two local newspapers. I've been in other places where the "local" paper is essentially USA Today with a few local stories dropped in. Neither of our papers are quite like that, and the competition keeps each one on its toes, sort of.

I was moving some stuff into my new house this weekend and the phone rang. (It was never shut off, even though no one has lived on that side of the house in something like twelve years.) It was the Times Leader calling to offer me a three-month subscription. So I guess they're not counting themselves out yet.

Yeah, better to have two publications, but one is hard pressed to give either of them respect as newspapers. Their coverage is often colored to reflect their political, economic, advertisers, and "social" interests.

Actually, of the four papers in NE PA, the Hazleton paper is one of the best journalistically speaking (admittedly, that isn't saying much).

Times Shamrock will purchase the TL; ironically in view of the anti trust laws, the CV will be the paper we lose as its circulation is not on a par with the TL. You heard it here first. Goodbye Citizen's Voice--Hello one Newspaper town.